President Barack Obama has announced plans for a $1bn (£600m) fund to increase US military deployments to Europe, during a visit to Poland.

Mr Obama, who will meet Nato leaders amid concerns over the Ukraine crisis, said the security of America’s European allies was “sacrosanct”.

… Speaking at a joint press conference in Warsaw with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, Mr Obama warned Russia against provoking further tensions in Ukraine. He said Moscow should use its influence to call off separatists in Ukraine’s east.

Mr Obama reaffirmed the US commitment to Nato’s principle of collective defence, announcing plans for a $1bn European Reassurance Initiative. The programme, which will fund additional US military rotations to Europe, will need congressional approval.

President Obama, with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, center, talks with EPA staff members who worked on the power-plant emissions standards, in the Rose Garden of the White House, June 2 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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ThinkProgress: 8 Things You Should Know About The Biggest Thing A President’s Ever Done On Climate Change

On Monday morning, the Environmental Protection Agency released its proposed rule to limit the amount of carbon pollution that existing power plants can dump into the atmosphere. This is the most significant move President Obama has made to address the direct causes of climate change.

The Clean Air Act, passed by Congress in 1970 and amended in 1990, is finally getting to tackle carbon pollution from the nation’s 491 smoke-spewing coal power plants. Contrary to what fossil fuel advocates claim, though, it does not mean that EPA will be directly shutting down coal plants. Each state would have a broad menu of carbon-cutting options, including energy efficiency improvements, adding clean energy sources, implementing a carbon tax, or instituting or joining a cap-and-trade system.

By 2020, states will have to have drop their carbon emissions from existing power plants 25 percent from 2005 levels. By 2030, according to the proposed rule, those emissions will have to drop another 5 percent — to 30 percent — from the same base 2005 level.

Here are 8 things you should know about the new rule:

This is the most significant move any U.S. president has made to curtail carbon pollution in history.

Republicans are reacting gleefully today to the announcement of new EPA rules curbing carbon emissions at existing power plants, certain (as always) that anything they can portray as Obummer Job Crushing Energy-Tax Hiking Big Gummint can only help hasten Dems’ doom.

But a new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that “a lopsided and bipartisan majority of Americans support federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions,” and not only that, “most are willing to stomach a higher energy bill to pay for it.”

Wait, but what about in red states, where the battle for the Senate will play out?

The People’s View: President Obama Sticks it to GOP Obstructionism and Revives Cap and Trade by Regulation

The EPA has announced a proposed rule that will for the first time ever target existing power plants – responsible for roughly a third of America’s greenhouse gas emissions – to cut their emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. This is a massive effort on the part of the Obama administration, and follows on the heels of the President’s weekend address on the same subject to Americans.

The plan will give states flexibility on exactly how they want to reduce emissions from power plants: whether through increased efficiency on the producer and/or user end, by switching all or parts of power plants to cleaner burning natural gas, using renewable and nuclear power (uh oh – I can already hear the screeching from the Professional Left), or… wait for it, wait for it, voluntary cap and trade programs!

If the White House were guided by nothing but political considerations, especially in an election year, it probably would have skipped a fight over climate change. Action on global warming is not high on voters’ list of top priorities, and congressional Republicans didn’t need another issue on which to turn their apoplexy nob to 11.

But with the climate crisis intensifying, it appears President Obama is putting policy above politics: his administration announced a proposal this morning that intends to cut carbon emissions by 30% before the year 2030. As Ned Resnikoff noted, if the policy is fully implemented, it has the potential to be “the most ambitious environmental initiative in U.S. history.”

Paul Waldman: The four GOP arguments against bringing back Bowe Bergdahl

Over the weekend the government announced that it had negotiated a deal for the release of Bowe Bergdahl, the sole American being held by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In exchange, five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo will be transferred to Qatar, where their movements will be restricted for a year.

Republicans will now attempt to turn this into a liability for President Obama. As Michael Tomasky put it, this is “the right’s new Benghazi.” So it’s worth looking at their actual arguments. There are four of them, with varying levels of persuasiveness.

1) The first argument is, to put it bluntly, that Bergdahl didn’t deserve to be rescued. The problem here isn’t the facts that support this claim, it’s the conclusion. It’s true that Bergdahl wasn’t the model of a heroic, patriotic soldier. He didn’t get captured while saving his platoon in a firefight. He was disgruntled with the war. He walked off his base, and some of those with whom he served consider him a deserter. According to some accounts he thought he would walk all the way to India, which suggests someone who was not in his right mind.

But the question is, should the government conduct a character study on every American servicemember who gets taken prisoner, and seek the release only of those who are sufficiently virtuous? Do we leave no one behind, or do we leave some behind if they don’t pass the test?

I firmly believe that, in some very prominent place in his mind, John McCain is in the second year of his second term as president of the United States. He certainly is president of John McCain. I don’t know the source of this delusion; in no way, is the guy a leader, either of his party or his nation. His only obvious followers are Senators Huckleberry Butchmeup from South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte, the Richelieu Of Rye…

Having already draped himself in a toga, McCain’s response to the Obama administration has been both petulant and imperious, a small boy commanding an army of butterflies. This is most recently illustrated in his response to the deal cut by the administration to arrange the release of Bowe Bergdahl from captivity.

The conservative chorus of opposition to the deal is a lovely harmonic convergence of complete hypocrisy and profound historical amnesia on the always delightful topic of “negotiating with terrorists.”….

ThinkProgress: Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What

Less than forty-eight hours after securing the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo, Republicans in Congress and conservatives in media began attacking the deal. In doing so, they are refusing to accept the reality of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and the way wars end.

The United States is engaged in an armed conflict in Afghanistan against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces authorized by Congress under the 2001 Authorizations to Use Military Force. It is remains controversial whether this armed conflict extends beyond Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan, but what is not in doubt is that of the enemy forces party to this conflict, the Taliban is confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama recently announced that the combat role for the United States in the armed conflict in Afghanistan will end this year and all participation will completely cease by 2016.

So let’s imagine that on Saturday night, the news had emerged not that Bowe Bergdahl was being freed but that he’d been murdered by his Taliban captors. What do you suppose we’d be hearing from Republican legislators? You know exactly what: Barack Obama is the weakest president ever, this is unconscionable….

The Republicans’ audacity here is a bit beyond the usual. Let’s face it: There is no question that if President George W. Bush or a President McCain or President Romney had secured Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Taliban prisoners at Gitmo, Republicans would be defending the move all the way. That business about notifying Congress? They’d have a dozen excuses for it. We got our prisoner of war home, they’d all be saying. That’s what matters.

But Obama does it, and Bergdahl’s freedom isn’t what matters at all. It’s that we negotiated with terrorists. Well, yes. We’ve been negotiating with the Taliban for a long time now, trying to end the war. See, they’re the people leading the fighting on the other side. When you’re trying to end a war, that’s generally who you negotiate with.

Over the years I’ve watched as people criticized President Obama’s administration for being bad at the public relations game. And so today I’m having a little chuckle about that. Because at this point, he is SO controlling the agenda that the lunatics can’t figure out which head-exploding action to focus on.

ThinkProgress: Seven Big Cases The Supreme Court Will Decide In June That Could Change America

It’s Supreme Court month again. According to the Court’s official calendar, the final day of the Supreme Court’s current term is the last day of this month — which means that, barring extraordinary circumstances, we should know how the justices intend to resolve each of the issues currently pending before them by June 30.

Among the issues facing the justices are the president’s power to fill top jobs in the face of a recalcitrant Senate, a legal attack on public sector unions, a case questioning when police can search all the data that can be accessed on a person’s cell phone, and an attempt to give employers sweeping immunity from laws they object to on religious grounds. Here are some of the most important cases to be decided this month:

On This Day

Senator Obama and his wife Michelle at an election night rally at the Xcel Energy Center June 3, 2008 in St. Paul, Minnesota

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First Lady Michelle Obama gives the commencement address at the Washington Math Science Technical High School, June 3, 2009

First Lady Michelle Obama visits with Former First Lady Nancy Reagan at the White House on June 3, 2009 (Photo by Samantha Appleton)

President Obama meets with senior staff during dinner in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, June 3, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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President Obama talks with Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest aboard Air Force One during a flight to Toledo, Ohio, June 3, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza)

Restaurant staff react as President Obama stops for lunch at Rudy’s Hot Dog in Toledo, Ohio, June 3, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama has lunch with Toledo Mayor Michael Bell at Rudy’s Hot Dog in Toledo, Ohio, June 3, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama arrives to speak to workers at Chrysler Group Toledo Supplier Park in Toledo, Ohio June 3, 2011.

First Lady Michelle Obama and American Indian children plant traditional crops in the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn of the White House, June 3, 2011. National Congress of American Indians President Jefferson Keel is at left (Photo by Samantha Appleton)

A young boy doesn’t let go of President Obama after he greeted residents across the street from Fred’s Pro Hardware in Toledo, Ohio, June 3, 2011

President Obama looks over gardening gloves for first lady Michelle Obama during an unannounced visit to Fred’s Pro Hardware in Toledo, Ohio, June 3, 2011

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Pete Souza: “As part of their daily end-of-the-day wrap, the President and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough walk on the South Lawn of the White House. They usually walk on the South Drive but on this day they ventured to this corner of the 18-acre grounds.” June 3, 2013

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Grr, ran out of time again – will catch up (ish) through the day. MoooOOOooorning everyone!

To repeat remarks from last thread—-The pushback agaist the POW exchange is a tantrum about ending the war rather than the particulars the press is screeching about.
Richard Engel is very unhappy the wars are ending and as we saw last week greatly relieved that PBO at least has given Afghanistan 2 more years.

In other but related news I see secondhand but possibly true that PBO’s approval ratings are up 5% from last month.
The country is happy that a POW is coming home,
Happy that Guantanamo POW are going to their homes
Happy that we will be leaving Afghanistan.

Richard Engel just wants us in one long, continuous war. He’s afraid he’ll lose his star status if he can’t report from a “war zone.” Get over it Richard. Lives are being saved, and the world can go on without you.

Funny enough I’ve had similar feeling about Engel; I’ve been turned off by his reporting for ages now. I think it might have been around the time when he was sharing his ‘expert’ opinion on the first set of soldiers coming home from Iraq. Or was it when I discovered that he chose to live in one war zone for an extended period of time? Can’t remember the cause but do remember that something struck me as ‘off’ and so I crossed him off my credible list.

Good Morning all – I don’t think the President needs to sleep – he stays on the go just to upset those who travel in the back of the plane!

Meanwhile Alison Lundergan Grimes will not win an election if she keeps being Mitch McConnell Light – she needs new advisors and soon.

And then, our excuse for a PM said this
“Prime Minister Tony Abbott has likened new action on climate change in the United States to his Government’s own Direct Action plan, which it wants in place of the current carbon pricing scheme.” An “action plan” – which like most action plans will do nothing.

Gooooooood morning Hopefruit! Excuse alert: I was actually progressing nicely, then 95 things happened at once and I didn’t have the time to finish off R&S with more newsie things 😳 Any way, we’ll get there by the end of the day. Hopefully.

Thanks once again for the R & S.. that I sooo take for granted everyday. It is the best part of my waking up 😉 Am I the only one that has spent the past 6 years looking at photos of POTUS & FLOTUS with we the people- and tear up throughout?? I think not.

OH you have that so right Chips.. I nearly died in 2006- and I put this at the top of my list of things I’m grateful as hell to be alive to see and be a part of. Grateful every single day. 🙂 🙂 And you have made it all the more exceptional for a world of people who respect and love our President. So, thank you.

Just reading this now…just wanted to say thank you for this R/S….the pic of FLOTUS with her new gardening gloves cracks me up…she, working in the garden, comes over to welcome POTUS off the helicopter that just landed in the front yard, and he gives her new gloves that he got in the hardware store he just visited:) 🙂 So damn cute!

Hope everyone has an awesome day…I’ll be in and out…it’s tutoring day for me! Summer vacation? What summer vacation? 🙂

These constant media/GOP driven firestorms are exhausting, but I guess that’s the point. All have really lost their heads on this Bergdahl rescue/exchange. The usuals will try to make Benghazi brouhaha pale in comparison. I’m hoping the public is so inoculated by the constant screaming and rage that most have learned to just tune out. Whatever decisions PBO makes, they lash out in uncontrollable fury. And the media loves it, feeds it. It’s a beyond disgusting situation. Oh—-and once again looking for Dems to swarm to back up their president, repeating his case day after day to at least blunt some of the criticism from the other side——and——-crickets.

There is no doubt that Kipling must have written this for the future President

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

I remember when I did a post here using Kipling as a starting off point. Some folks sent out tweets referring to it (in a positive way). I will never forget the person who responded saying how ironic to use poetry to show how manly PBO is, as if poetry is effeiminate.

It’s time I went to bed – someone just said “this is someone wanting to change the constitution for the first time ever” ??? Even I know that there are many amendments to the US Constitution!!
Limiting campaign money is against the first amendment?
They really are stupid – their brains have been sizzled by hatred.

On that happy note – I’m off to bed – have a great day following PBO around Europe.

Good Morning my Chips, TOD family and Danny O’. It is always a great day when we awake and are able to hear the voice of our great POTUS and hear his brilliant mind extend greetings in such an elegant way from the American people.

However, it pains my heart to hear the traveling ‘gossip clowns’ trying to shame our President and our nation when he is on these trips. But one thing of many good things; PBO will always rise above the “haters pool”.

We will rise with him and continue to work everyday to help him finish his work as our president and our CIC. If anyone ought to be asked questions, why not ask the questions back home to those vile haters in Congress who have systematically blocked this president at every level.

Now, I will get myself into my meditation prayer state and try to center my thoughts so that I can move through this world with some sense of peacefulness, compassion, and wisdom to help send out some good energy to our President as he travels. Lift up Sec. Kerry, and the entire team who are working to make great progress for our nation and the world during this trip.

Place the best of your goodness into your precious space today giving grateful meditations as to how you can love yourself, love someone else, and show compassion to your earth by keeping it clean and protected from those things that will hurt it. Be joyful with a song in your hearts and enjoy life. We have the best man ever leading our nation; so rise up, stand tall, and speak with wisdom to the forces that would keep your down. “We Rise Also.”HZ

Thanks for highlighting the upcoming SCOTUS decisions that could help this country move forward or take us backwards as they did with Voting Rights. Thanks also for highlighting the historic move President Obama and the EPA undertook with the new carbon pollution rules.

Well too much alcohol causes a sugar rush so your body makes insulin to counter it which can cause your blood sugar to crash–and then the hangover part. So, I do think it is possible that too much ice cream could cause a hangover.

An interesting note…….I’ve not read any statements or seen any from any of the Congressional leadership…..Reid, even McConnell, Durbin, Pelosi….Boehner?…..disagreeing with the rescue of Bergdahl. I am thinking this is because the leadership was notified pre rescue, and they know what is going on. None of the blabbermouths are part of the leadership. I know this KILLS McGrumpy. As usual, the ones talking are the ones who know nothing.

Exactly carolyn – which is why I had to school a few folks on Twitter today who were complaining about DWStweets not “defending PBO.” and how Reince Priebus and the GOP are all over the media talking. I almost dropped an epic mega-rant on this thread on how people fundamentally misunderstand DWStweets’ role in the Democratic Party, but didn’t want spoil Chips’ lovely R & S that had just been posted. I will still post that rant some time today/tonight when the time is opportune.

UPDATE: One of the former Gitmo detainees released under Bush is suspected in the, wait for it, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
U.S. officials suspect that a former Guantanamo Bay detainee played a role in the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi,
Libya, and are planning to designate the group he leads as a foreign terrorist organization, according to officials familiar with the plans.

Militiamen under the command of Abu Sufian bin Qumu, the leader of Ansar al-Sharia in the Libyan city of Darnah, participated in the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, U.S. officials said…
In 2007, Qumu was released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent to Libya, where he was detained. The Libyan government released him in 2008.

Yeah, no wonder they’re screaming so loud…they need to deflect from THIS little nugget! I detest these morons.

After 5 years in captivity, Bowe Berdahl has been rescued.
He is currently undergoing extensive debriefing and the military is handling his transition.
His family has yet to see him.
But the craven GOP is losing its collective mind because they have no control over how these wars, which they mismanaged horrendously in our name, are ending responsibly.
So they are wailing like village idiots who have no ideas, no direction, no moral compass.

“Accidental Racist” singer Brad Paisley, fresh from a surprise appearance in Afghanistan with President Barack Obama, snapped a selfie with some Wesrboro Baptist Church protestors outside his concert in Bonner Springs, KS. The Facebook post of the selfie is up to 240,000 likes:

The fool that took the picture is not professional enough to remove the blueish mic or tripod distraction in the middle? Seriously? A pool photographer, amateurish, indeed. Calling on Pete Souza, the professional in presidential photo shoots….YES!

UPDATE: One of the former Gitmo detainees released under Bush is suspected in the, wait for it, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
U.S. officials suspect that a former Guantanamo Bay detainee played a role in the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi,
Libya, and are planning to designate the group he leads as a foreign terrorist organization, according to officials familiar with the plans.

Militiamen under the command of Abu Sufian bin Qumu, the leader of Ansar al-Sharia in the Libyan city of Darnah, participated in the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, U.S. officials said…
In 2007, Qumu was released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent to Libya, where he was detained. The Libyan government released him in 2008.

Yeah, no wonder they’re screaming so loud…they need to deflect from THIS little nugget! I detest these morons.

A former Bush administration official broke with Republicans on Tuesday to defend President Obama’s prisoner exchange, arguing that since “the war in Afghanistan is winding down,” the United States would be required to return prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay back to Afghanistan. “I don’t see how these particular Taliban officials could ever have been tried in the southern district of New York,” John Bellinger, who served as an adviser to President George W. Bush explained during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday. “They’re certainly some Al Qaeda detainees who committed actual terrorist acts against Americans who perhaps could have been tried in a federal court because they committed federal crimes, but these particular Taliban detainees I think could never have been tried in federal court.” Although some of the released prisoners posed a danger to the United States when they were captured in 2002, especially toward soldiers serving in Afghanistan, several of the detainees did not commit crimes against Americans.

…Though Cheney told Fox News on Monday that he would not have agreed to the deal, Bellinger stressed that the Bush administration “returned something like 500 detainees from Guantanamo.” Statistics from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence show that only 6 percent (5 in total) of Guantanamo detainees released during the Obama administration have potentially engaged in militant activities. That compares with a rate of nearly 30 percent under the Bush administration.

“I’m not saying this is clearly an easy choice but frankly I think a Republican, a president of either party, Republican or Democratic confronted with this opportunity to get back Sgt. Bergdahl, who is apparently in failing health, would have taken this opportunity to do this,” he added. “I think we would have made the same decision in the Bush administration.”….

1. Rafael Nadal was born on 3rd June, 1986 in Manacor, an island in Spain to Sebastián Nadal and Ana María Parera. He resides with his family in a five-story apartment building in their hometown of Manacor, Mallorca. When he was young, his family turned down an offer to train at an elite Barcelona academy because they thought it would affect his studies.

One thing about the Bergdahl “scandal” that I don’t understand. It is one thing to claim he went AWOL or deserted his post. Did he? I don’t know and I don’t care in the discussion of whether or not it was the right thing to do to get him basck. And if Bush did the same thing to get an American serviceman back, I would applaud that as well.

But I am seeing lots of accusations that Bergdahl deserted to go to the Taliban willingly. Does that really make any sense. If he had, wouldn’t the Taliban been shouting that fact from the rooftops? Of course they would have. They didn’t, therefore he didn’t.

Unlike many on the right, I won’t jump to conclusions about what he did. I am just glad he is coming home to a family that loves him and has been worried sick for 5 years.

The GOP doesn’t realize how much this is going to bite them in the ass. Heard a caller from Idaho on the radio this morning. Described himself as a Republican but said their behavior over this could turn Idaho purple.

Picking up little bits and pieces and who knows what is in fact true——-but read an NBC account from a reporter who was embedded in Bergdahl’s unit, saying he heard a group there, which included Bergdahl, asking, “What are we doing here?”—–which I imagine was a familiar refrain in a lot of places there—–and saying that the Afghans just wanted to be left alone, not living in a war zone.
And if there is truth to any Bergdahl fam history, he was really an unlikely enlistee——turned to the military after a series of pt. time jobs, grew up in a fam who lived in the “wilderness”, mostly off the grid, home schooled, no TV, deeply conservative and religious, not worldly, naive. He saw enlisting as like joining the Peace Corps, that he was going to Afghanistan strictly to help the people. The atrocities he witnessed in those first few weeks must have been startling.
The father quit his job as UPS driver a couple years ago as he devoted every minute to doing everything possible, including teaching himself the Taliban languages and studying their religion in depth, to get his son back. And ironic that he is now being attacked by the deeply conservative wing of the populace, the same segment where he saw himself.

A question that will never be asked of those spouting idiotic verbiages on TV/Cable……How did US know that 92 or so of the 532 released during GW Bush from the GITMO detainees went back to fight and 3 of the 80 released from pres Obama did too?

Obviously, the US has ways of tracking them.

Mindless nonsense on the air without Real THINKING is what gets me the most. US News Media are just useless.

“But I am seeing lots of accusations that Bergdahl deserted to go to the Taliban willingly. Does that really make any sense. If he had, wouldn’t the Taliban been shouting that fact from the rooftops? Of course they would have. They didn’t, therefore he didn’t.”

I took my own advice and unplugged from the 24 hour gop propaganda machine and I feel refreshed. I’m sure I missed a few few fake scandals but since the gop dictates that which constitutes a scandal and the gop thinks what everPBO does is scandalous, I think all I missed is a lot of noise and stupidity. I notice a lot of anger directed towrds Grimes for not running as a liberal democrat in Kentucky. Some even going as far as saying they hope McTurtle wins. To this self defeating foolishness I say WAKE UP. We must stay focused on the big picture and not take things so personally. All politics is local and Kentucky is not some liberal Mecca. It is a coal state and it would be foolish for her to act as though this is not the case. Kentucky also seems to be rather backwards racially. PBO did not win Kentucky and is not popular in that state, we cannot wish that reality away. Dems need to have blue dogs in the coalition in order to have governing majorities. This is another fact that must be accepted. I am certain that PBO wants Grimes to win. His supporters should follow his lead and never lose sight of the big picture. Be pragmatic.